30 Things You Never Knew About Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift’s albums—full of stinging heartbreak (with a sprinkle of retaliation)—suggest she’s an open book. Don’t fall for it. Time and again the candid singer has proven she’s full of secrets and surprises (remember that time she wiped her entire Instagram account?). Here are 30 things you may not know about her.

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She framed a photo of the infamous Kanye West VMA scandal for her apartment.

Taylor has a framed photo of the moment Kanye West hijacked her acceptance speech during the 2009 VMAs in the living room of her Nashville duplex, according to a reporter at New York magazine who interviewed her there. It hangs above a handwritten note that reads: Life is full of little interruptions.

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Blake Lively's daughter, James, is featured and credited on Taylor’s song “Gorgeous.”

Taylor featured Blake's oldest daughter saying “gorgeous” for the first line of “Gorgeous” on her album Reputation. James receives her due credit in the album’s booklet: “Baby intro voice by James Reynolds.”

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She grew up on a Christmas tree farm.

Born in Reading, PA, Taylor spent the first 14 years of her life living on a Christmas tree farm with her family, per People. Plus, the house wasn’t too shabby either. The six-bedroom home sold for $700,000 in 2013, according to Zillow.

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She learned to play guitar on a 12-string.

Despite being told her hands were too small, Taylor learned to play a 12-string guitar before ever picking up a six-string. Her mother told Entertainment Weekly, “She started playing it four hours a day— six on the weekends. She would get calluses on her fingers and they would crack and bleed, and we would tape them up and she’d just keep on playing.”

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She is the youngest person to get a songwriting deal at Nashville’s Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

At 14 years old, after turning down a deal with RCA Records because she wouldn’t have the opportunity sing her own music, she signed with Sony/ATV Music Publishing in Nashville, according to Entertainment Weekly.

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She’s named after James Taylor.

Taylor’s parents are big fans, and so named her after the musician, according to Vogue. Taylor got the chance to perform with her namesake at a benefit in 2011.

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She has film and television credits on her resumé too.

You can look forward to seeing Taylor in the film adaptation of Cats which is set to begin filming this November. While you wait for its premiere, check out Taylor’s performances in The Giver, New Girl, and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

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She’s the youngest Grammy winner for album of the year.

Taylor took home a trophy in 2010 for her album Fearless. At 20 years old, she is the youngest person to receive the honor.

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She wrote and sang her hit “Our Song” for her ninth-grade talent show.

A hit single on her debut album, “Our Song” was originally written for a school performance and ended up making it onto her album Taylor Swift, per CMT News.

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TIME magazine included Taylor in its 2017 Person of the Year edition.

Taylor was interviewed as a Silence Breaker for speaking out and testifying against the man she accused of grabbing her butt during a meet-and-greet in 2013. After he was fired from his job following her report of the incident, he sued her for defamation. She countersued for $1 and won. When asked what her fans should take away from her experience, Taylor answered, “My advice is that you not blame yourself and do not accept the blame others will try to place on you."

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She only performed one show in 2017.

During her pre-Super Bowl set for DIRECTV Now Super Saturday Night, the singer announced it would be her only performance of the year. She told the crowd, “I have to be really honest with you about something: As far as I know, I'm doing one show in 2017. And as far as I know, this is that one show."

To get the latest updates on the singer’s life Taylor Swift: The Swift Life promises users the ability to interact with each other and gives them access to photos and Taymoji stickers.

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When she started out, her record label, Big Machine Label Group, had no furniture.

A young Taylor would sit on the floor of the start-up label and stuff envelops with her record to send to radio stations because recording with Big Machine meant creative control, per the Los Angeles Times. Now a major label, Big Machine represents talents including Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett, and Sugarland.

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She ditched the blonde locks for a hot sec.

For Sugarland’s “Babe” music video, Taylor threw us for a loop and donned a red wig. But this wasn’t the first time she sported the fiery look. Tay had red hair in her celeb-filled “Bad Blood” music video in 2014.

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Reputation is the first album on which she uses a curse word.

In her song “I Did Something Bad,” Taylor sings “If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing.”

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Her album Speak Now was written by her and only her.

In response to critics who doubted the singer/songwriter had been writing her own music, Taylor wrote her third studio album on her own with the exception of one song she co-wrote with Martin Johnson, per TIME. Before this, she collaborated with co-writers on her songs.

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Paparazzi determine whether or not she’ll leave her house.

Proving she’s just like us, Taylor is “perfectly happy staying in.” She told TIME, “I try to evaluate whether I’m in the right emotional space to deal with that, and if I’m not, then I just stay in.”

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She’s the reason GoFundMe increased its donation limit.

When Taylor donated $50,000 toward a fan’s medical bills, the money had to be processed in four installments because of the site’s donation cap. After this, GoFundMe upped the maximum donation limit to $50,000, according to People.

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Her celebrity-studded Fourth of July party served as Ed Sheeran’s first date with his fiancé.

Every year Instagram awaits photos from Taylor’s Rhode Island Independence Day bash with bated breath. Ed Sheeran told People he’d invited an old friend, Cherry Seaborn, to Taylor’s annual celebration in 2015, and the two are now engaged.

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Kanye West blames T.Swift for his album getting such little radio airtime.

They’re feuding, then they’re not, then they are again. When Kanye’s album Saint Pablo didn’t get as much love on the radio as the rapper and designer would have liked, he blamed the very public dispute regarding whether Taylor approved of his referring to her as “that bitch” in his song “Famous.” In an interview with Charlemagne tha God, Kanye said, "Really ever since the Taylor Swift moment, it just, it's never been the same.”

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She wasn’t really in England for work.

In an effort to keep her relationship with Joe Alwyn private, Taylor would tell people she was in England “for work,” according to E!.

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She was a bridesmaid in her best friend Abigail’s wedding.

Yes, the same Abigail she sings about in her song “Fifteen.” Taylor’s BFF got married last year and Taylor held Abigail’s train before she took her first steps down the aisle, per Billboard.

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13 is her lucky number.

The singer was born on December 13, and has incorporated the number in her music many times. Her fans have pinpointed the singer’s deliberate uses of the number including a 13-second song intro or leaving the 13th track off of her latest album during early release to build anticipation.

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She’s a United States history buff.

In 2011, Taylor told Rolling Stone about her interest in reading about the early days of the United States, including books about the Founding Fathers and the Kennedy family.

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She has a brother named Austin.

Austin Swift is an actor and he’s two years younger than his sister.

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She owns real estate across four states.

With three properties in New York alone, Taylor can call multiple states home. Her houses, estates, and apartments are estimated to be valued at $84 million total, according to property values estimated by Trulia for Business Insider.

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She wouldn’t allow her music to stream on Spotify.

In 2014, Taylor wrote an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal saying, “It’s my opinion that music should not be free.” However, in 2017 following record-breaking album sales, she finally allowed her albums to stream on the platform.

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Her first job was debugging Christmas trees on her family’s farm.

“We all had jobs,” Taylor told Vogue, “Mine was picking the praying mantis pods off of the trees, collecting them so that the bugs wouldn’t hatch inside people’s houses.”

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Her legs were rumored to be insured for $40 million.

Rumors once spread saying, in the event that Taylor is ever injured and cannot perform, she’s insured, and her legs are apparently worth a massive $40 million, per US Weekly. Proving the rumor made its way back to her, she made light of it on Instagram when she posted a (now-deleted) photo of a scratch on her leg caused by her cat, Meredith, with the caption: “GREAT WORK MEREDITH I WAS JUST TRYING TO LOVE YOU AND NOW YOU OWE ME 40 MILLION DOLLARS.”

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